Discussion

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

1 participants
3272 discussions

Fwd: FSCONS highlights -- @Ifi, 4-5 november 2017
by Paul Boddie 18 Oct '17

18 Oct '17

Hello, I promised to pass this on, but was probably going to ask on this list whether anyone was aware of it. I went to FSCONS a whole five years ago and met quite a few FSFE people, but I think it hasn't been as popular amongst FSFE people in recent years. Paul ---- FSCONS: The Free Society Conference November 4-5, Oslo, Norway https://fscons.org/2017/ A meeting place for social change, focused on the intersection between technology, culture and society. The conference brings together people from a wide range of fields, and merges the technical with the social, seeking both to activate and challenge. Your input in open discussion and brainstorming are as important as the talks given during the conference. Here are some highlights of the awesome schedule we are excited to share with you: Keynotes: Linda Sandvik @hyper_linda, Code Club co-founder, part of the Brexodus. Linda likes solving problems that make the world a better place and has a passion for open data, open knowledge, citizen science and serious games. Come to her talk, and discover your natural affinity for teaching yourself new things. Vladan Joler @TheCreaturesLab and Share Lab Vladan and his Share Labs have mapped the power relations of Facebook CEOs, metadata explorations into browsing histories, quantifying political information warfare and creating stunning and insightful infographics of this data-driven research at https://labs.rs/ Meet Linda and Vladan at FSCONS, get your ticket today at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fscons-2017-oslo-tickets-37008324896 Speaker highlights: Jérémie Zimmermann, La Quadrature du Net online freedom organization, will speak about Hacking With Care, a collective composed of hackers-activists, caregivers, artists, sociologist, growing quite literally by contact and affinity. Bradley Kuhn, free software activist, president of the Software Freedom Conservancy, on the Board of Directors of the Free Software Foundation, editor in chief of copyleft.org, will explain how the basis of free software and free culture licensing is crumbling. Øyvind Kolås @hodefoting pippin, award-winning creator of digital media tools, GIMP/GEGL developer, digital artist. Learn how to create minimal graphical operating environments with Øyvind. Vinay Gupta, @hexayurt, re.silience security in critical infrastructure, Ethereum release coordinator. Have you ever wondered how user interface shapes human identity? Patricia Aas, @pati_gallardo, Vivaldi browser programmer & security noob, fell involuntarily into the media searchlights by asking some hard questions on the lack of transparency in the recent Norwegian goverment electronic vote. You can hear her story at FSCONS. Patrice Riemens, cultural/Internet activist, 'FLOSSopher', advocate of Free Software, staff member of autonomist journal Multitudes, and member of the Dutch hackers club 'Hippies from Hell'. Cryptocurrency meets Universal Basic Income: Is this a good idea? FSCONS also has 20 other speakers speaking on diverse topics ranging from digital activism and internet censorship to digital art and hacking. We also have four hands-on workshops where you can learn video editing, lockpicking, how to make peer-to-peer applications and how to hack with care. This is an intimate conference where you have an opportunity to have a discussion with speakers and other attendees. FSCONS aims to be an accessible conference, and through the support of Fritt Ord and NUUG Foundation is able to offer tickets at the low price of 750NOK (about 80€) Get your FSCONS ticket today at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fscons-2017-oslo-tickets-37008324896

3 2

New FOSS email webamin
by Ioli Papadopoulou 15 Oct '17

15 Oct '17

2 1

PMPC flyers containing QR-codes for the translated pages
by Gergely Székely 15 Oct '17

15 Oct '17

Dear All, Here you can find flyers containing QR-codes for the translated pages of the PMPC campaign: https://git.fsfe.org/gergely/PMPC_QR-code_flyers The main idea is to have an easily and cheaply reproducible PMPC campaign material that can be both posted on bulletin boards and given to the hands of people. Another benefit is that it is easier to scan a QR-code than typing an url for people using mobile devices. I also think it would be a good idea to mobilize FSFE activists in cities (where there are enough activists) to spread the flyers in streets to reach as many people as possible. What do you think? Best, Gergely

1 0

improving fellowship communication (GA motion)
by Daniel Pocock 14 Oct '17

14 Oct '17

Hi all, Since being elected as one of the fellowship representatives, I've been looking at various ways to perform this role effectively. For people who joined FSFE through the FSFE fellowship program, the fellowship representatives are the most senior elected representatives designated in the FSFE constitution[1] and therefore it would appear logical to me that as the representatives, we would be the ones trusted to make decisions about communication with our constituency. In practice, however, this is not the case and people in various parts of the organization (this was discussed in the GA list) have expressed various concerns (e.g. data protection laws, member expectations) for not empowering the fellowship representatives to communicate directly with the people who voted for us. The original request I sent to the GA is at the bottom of this email. Personally, I felt these concerns demonstrated a lack of trust and confidence in the fellowship representatives and in fact even a lack of trust and confidence in humanity to organize ourselves democratically. Having served in various representative roles in the past where membership lists were always available to me I actually felt somewhat insulted by these responses and uncertain about whether the fellowship representative role is meant to be only an illusion of representation rather than an active representative. I put forward a motion for the GA meeting to address this for the future. To maximize the possibility of achieving consensus at the GA meeting (motions are not usually voted on), the motion is not retrospective and does not attempt to clarify the current status of membership data under privacy laws or whatever else, it is only about avoiding further ambiguity in the future. To ensure the GA can understand how people feel, it would be interesting to get opinions from the community: - when you join an organization such as FSFE and you provide personal data such as your name and email address, do you expect that office holders and elected representatives would have some access to this data in performing their roles? - do you feel it is reasonable for people who are in a position of trust to have some discretion in how they use the data as long as they do so in the best interests of the organization, it's mission and it's members? Or do you believe the organization should strive to obfuscate the data so that even office holders can't read it and put systems in place so communications are sent out to members through an opaque process? - what are the practices you have seen in other community organizations in the free software space and can we learn anything from them in developing best practice? Proposed motion: The GA recognizes the stark difference between the way FSFE coordinates contributor data and other organizations are doing things. FSFE supporter data is only available to Reinhard, Jones, system-hackers(?), ISP staff and third-parties involved in payment processing. The GA resolves to let supporters choose to be a "silent" supporter who simply donates and expects nothing in return and contributors who choose to volunteer and are identifiable to other contributors through a PGP keyring, directory or other means. Where somebody chooses to be in the former category, their personal data will remain under a somewhat default data protection regime (need-to-know access only) whereas if they choose to be in the latter category, they will be informed that a less stringent data protection policy is in effect. Where somebody in the latter category (contributor) provides information that is only required to process a donation (credit card billing address, payment card details, etc), that information will remain under strict privacy controls. Background to this motion: In Debian, for example, all trusted contributors are identified in a publicly distributed PGP keyring and many more contributors are identified through resources like contributors.debian.org and the Ultimate Debian Database. Many people feel that a de-centralized organization like this is more appropriate for robustness and for empowering volunteers. Regards, Daniel 1. https://fsfe.org/about/legal/constitution.en.html -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: improving fellowship communication Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 10:53:27 +0200 From: Daniel Pocock <daniel(a)pocock.pro> To: ga(a)fsfeurope.org Hi all, As I've been elected as a fellowship representative, I feel it is important a) to know who I am representing b) to be able to communicate with them directly I've asked Erik if he could provide contact details for the fellowship and he stated that data protection prevents this and requires all communication to go through Reinhard. It is standard practice for just about any other elected representative to have this basic data. For example, when I was elected as employee representative on a pension committee, I was given a full list of all members. In most countries people who run for public office are given a list of all the people registered to vote at the deadline, this also helps with transparency and detecting errors. I feel it is important for FSFE to address this. Personally, I would like to email a report about my own activities to fellows from time to time, probably using a reply-to header set to the discussion list. I would not object to signing a confidentially agreement, committing to store the data securely, limiting my use of any such data to FSFE purposes and committing not to use the data to promote myself or endorse any future candidates in fellowship elections. Regards, Daniel

6 5

Is lack of software freedom a valid reason for refusal?
by Carsten Agger 08 Oct '17

08 Oct '17

I imagine a number of situations: * Suppose I'm unemployed and dedicated to only using free software - I'm offered a job where I'll have to use Windows and Microsoft Word. If I refuse the job because of software freedom. Can I still be claim unemployment benefit? * I'm an unemployed programmer and get offered at job where I have to *write* proprietary software - I refuse because I won't participate in taking users' freedom. Can I still be claim unemployment benefit? * I want to park my car in the city, but it's only possible to pay by downloading one of two proprietary apps (real-world situation in Copenhagen) on my smartphone. Can I refuse to pay an eventual fine on the grounds that I couldn't pay? ... etc. I think the ideal must be for the lack of software freedom to *always* be accepted as a valid reason to refuse a given piece of software, but pragmatically, it may not always be possible (especially, many people like to have jobs and may prioritize that above not using/writing proprietry software).

7 12

"joining" the FSFE
by Daniel Pocock 03 Oct '17

03 Oct '17

Hi all, Whenever I'm discussing FSFE with people at an event, somebody inevitably asks me about the joining process or what it means to be an FSFE member. There has actually been some ambiguity about this. The main page of the web site has a "Join the FSFE" button, it is very prominent. It links to a page where "join" is in the URL: https://fsfe.org/fellowship/ams/join.php?ams=join and the title says "Join the FSFE" Anybody who has ever joined any other organization before is going to assume that after following these links and completing the form they are an equal member of the organization. In practice, the organization has different groups: - the GA members (the first group) being the only members of the legal body, the "Join" page doesn't give any instructions for people to pursue this type of membership nor does it tell people that they are not becoming voting members - The "Join" links on the web site should probably say "Become a donor" because that is what they are about, asking people to become regular donors (this is the second group) - people can also be a volunteer (the third group), without being either a legal (voting) member or a donor, the join link doesn't actually give people any information about how to do this I've tried to raise this in the GA a few times but the "Join the FSFE" button remains prominent on the web site and I feel this undermines the organization in the eyes of the wider community and also challenges the relationship between the organization and those people who have already engaged with us. I proposed a motion for the GA meeting to finally resolve this, give us clarity in the future and hopefully putting the issue behind us in a way that will gain respect and confidence from anybody who "joined" and subsequently became disillusioned about it. Would anybody like to comment on this topic, share their experience with the joining process or comment on your impression of the buttons and text currently in use? Proposed motion: The GA recognizes that the widespread use of the word "Join" on the FSFE web site may have caused many fellows and volunteers to believe their payment made them a member of the incorporated association. The GA resolves that a notice should be published on the web site clarifying the situation, the notice should be sent to everybody who completed the form to "Join the FSFE" and any future communication, through the web site or other marketing materials should make it unambiguous whether people are being solicited to join the incorporated association, volunteer their time or become a financial supporter and also making them aware of the alternative roles they can have in the organization. Regards, Daniel

5 5

Is it acceptable to use proprietary software (platforms) to promote software freedom?
by Erik Albers 02 Oct '17

02 Oct '17

Hi all, Maybe you noted in the Newsletter May [1] a pro and contra between our Executive Director and our Fellowship representative: On the FSFE's Planet, we had an interesting dialogue popping up between our executive director Jonas Öberg who argues that sometimes you can use proprietary software to further free and open source software [2] although you should be aware about the risk of backfiring. And Daniel Pocock, our new Fellowship representative, answered with "the risk of proprietary software" [3] and that "no deal might be better than a bad deal", meaning that if you cannot achieve something with Free Software you should consider just doing without it. In our European core team we are having a lively discussion now about the pros and cons of using proprietary software platforms like Facebook, Meetup, Twitter and alike to send out our message of software freedom. You may have noticed that the FSFE for example runs a Twitter-account. We do this under some rules but in particular under the rule that these "services are an addition to the FSFE's communication channels and not a replacement. The teams have to make sure to always provide the information accessible by using Free Software without pushing people to create accounts on proprietary platform." Means that every information on a proprietary platform is only a mulitiplication of information that is given somewhere else, accessible and created with Free Software. Now I would be interested what you think? Do you think that - although the use of proprietary platforms is ethically not supportable - the chances of convincing new people to use and further Free Software are worth the punishment? Or do you think that our message should not occur on platforms like Facebook or Twitter at all, because it contradicts our efforts in getting people to use decentralized services, run with Free Software and therefore potentially harm us in the long run? Thank you for sharing your opinions on this, Erik [1] https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201705 [2] http://blog.jonasoberg.net/using-proprietary-software-for-freedom/ [3] https://danielpocock.com/risks-of-using-proprietary-software -- No one shall ever be forced to use non-free software Erik Albers | Communication & Community Coordinator | FSFE OpenPGP Key-ID: 0x8639DC81 on keys.gnupg.net

28 102

community feedback on GA meeting agenda?
by Daniel Pocock 29 Sep '17

29 Sep '17

Hi all, A draft agenda was recently circulated for the GA meeting with a deadline of 1 October for any changes. As one of the fellowship representatives, I have put forward a number of proposed motions that attempt to gain consensus on some of the issues discussed on FSFE mailing lists recently. Does anybody have any topics they would explicitly like to draw attention to for the GA agenda? Would people like to see the agenda available publicly, possibly on the wiki? The minutes of past meetings are already public[1] Regards, Daniel 1. https://fsfe.org/about/legal/legal.en.html

4 10

Meetup in Barcelona?
by Carsten Agger 29 Sep '17

29 Sep '17

Dear all, with the occasion of the Plone Conference, I'll be in Barcelona from October 12 to 23. I'll be giving a talk about the Baobáxia project: https://2017.ploneconf.org/talks/baobaxia-the-galaxy-of-baobab-trees If anyone would like to meet up and discuss free software and perhaps have a beer or something like that, do get in touch! Best Carsten

2 2

Free Software in Europe -- Position Paper
by hellekin 28 Sep '17

28 Sep '17

This proposal was submitted to the Next Generation Internet consulting project at NLnet on 2017-09-27 at 22:27. ## Building a Public Discourse for Free Software We need support to engage with the free software community at European level to fulfill the following agenda. The specific step for which we’re asking support is the funding of our forum platform that serves as the base of operations of [the Migration project]. We’re aiming at boosting a think-tank involving technicians, philosophers, lawyers, lobbyists to create influential publications and amplifying existing free software action networks at European level. [the Migration project]: https://ps.zoethical.com/groups/Migrators We're making *a public discourse that differentiates proprietary software from free software on technical ground.* With this new understanding, policy-makers in Europe can consciously choose to favor free software instead of wasting public funding on private interests that are unable to deliver a solid public digital infrastructure. Over the last decade, a number of free software activists, mostly in Europe, have been gathering, trying to alleviate the huge asymmetry of funding between proprietary and free software in general, and especially in public institutions. Small steps have been made, resulting in a growing network of instruments for free software projects to access economic and legal means to sustain them. But the free software movement is too often perceived as an ethical lobby of entrenched idealists who don’t play well with others. Lately the open-source world has been diluting with corporations historically opposed to free software, and others that make extensive use of free software, eventually promoting and funding some open-source projects, but who are actually working against the ethics of software freedom, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM). This recuperation of the free software movement by problematic U.S. companies involved in sapping privacy, fair markets, and technological diversity, send the wrong message, and give a wrong incentive to European policy-makers who make decisions with few actual technical knowledge. Our aim is to develop a public discourse that free software activists and lobbyists can use to counteract this trend in European policy, that appear even more pregnant as the upcoming reform of European Copyright law seems to indicate that the rule of Law may be side-stepped by direct access of software patent owners – often U.S. corporations – to actual means of disrupting the open-source model of code development. (See the current Public Money, Public Code campaign of the FSFE, and the article 13 of the European Copyright law reform under way.) In order to counteract this trend, we started the NEST (Nouvelles Études Simondoniennes Transdisciplinaires, New Transdisciplinary Simondonian Studies) working group gathering philosophers and technicians interested in developing a public discourse that distinguishes proprietary software from free software on technical grounds. We’re looking for support to: - publish a collective article on this topic - extend our reach and publish a review demonstrating the need for free technologies to provide a public digital infrastructure - engage and coordinate with existing free software activists and developers in Europe We’re currently using an online forum to develop this discourse on our spare time. We need resources to professionalize this endeavor in order to provide a European-wide initiative that will amplify the reach of existing lobbies (FSFE, EDRI) and support the free software community out of the idealist margins it has been relegated to, into a strong force to build a sustainable technological society that is respectful of citizens, and economically sound. The worst-case scenario is already under way. If article 13 is voted into European law, software patent holders may be able to forcefully close key public code repositories that participate in the larger open-source code base without intervention of a judge, eventually breaking software builds and rendering some free software illegal. Anti-reverse-engineering clauses may render software security research illegal and harder to do. This combination of trends may effect in a disruption of the Internet and the free software movement. The GAFAM are currently in a unique position where they can force competition out by “selling at zero price”, effectively killing any attempt at entering the market. This monopolistic behavior requires huge amounts of capital, and cannot be countered with current laws and tax systems. The GAFAM are known to pay much less taxes than they should. This gives them an unfair advantage only reinforcing itself as they capture more markets in Europe. Understanding of how technologies work is a key component of inflecting European policy in a direction that is favorable to the Internet and democracy. By gathering support around key technical arguments, we believe we can provide strong political support towards establishing a public digital infrastructure in Europe, based on free software that create open-ended technologies where all technical stakeholders, small and big, can contribute. This will create a highly competitive market not only open to larger corporations with infinite credits, but also to local businesses that can better respond to local needs while still strengthening the common infrastructure. It will also pave the way to bring forward a strong strategic advantage for the European Union over the USA that currently dominate the Internet markets. For example, once policy-makers have understood the technical influence they can gain from forcing competition on larger corporations, they can implement EU-wide electronic payment systems on free software like GNU TALER that provides transparent sales (taxable), and at the same time privacy-preserving purchases. Such a possibility can bring a halt to many current fraud and tax evasion from larger players in the European Union, reinforcing the European market and helping to balance unfair competition from larger corporations. These issues must be addressed at several levels and time frames but the first part that this proposal introduces must be addressed by a small group of free software technicians and philosophers to create the public discourse that will provide others the arguments for a shift in policy. The first part of the effort, i.e., running the NEST WG successfully, will require a full time effort for the coordinator, and several publications by renowned academics over the next year. The main obstacle is the current misunderstanding of open-ended technologies that allow proprietary software companies to capture public money, instead of having a myriad of free technologies companies building up a public digital infrastructure. But once the discourse is public, it cannot be undone: understanding implies a change of perception, a new perspective on technologies from the part of policy-makers. We’re aiming for: - more engagement with the https://ps.zoethical.com/ platform and/or a new successful platform hosted in partnership with FSFE and other stakeholders. - concrete outcomes with federating EU free software lobbyists - successful impact on the understanding of open-ended technologies by EU policy-makers Current time estimates aim: - to establish a public discourse susceptible to bring a more adequate understanding of open-ended technologies to the public in general, and EU policy makers in particular within 6 to 12 months. - to gather forces and create European consortia that can respond to public EU calls following this discourse, involving existing activist (CCC, EDRI, FSFE, LQDN, etc.) and funders (CCT, EdgeFunders, NLnet, Public CIC, TCC) networks, as well as free software unions (e.g., Synpell in France) and related free software companies and university departments, within 18 months. - to involve political parties active in the EU Parliament and work in collaboration with the above-mentioned networks to pass legislation favorable to a public digital infrastructure, 6 to 12 months from now, within 36 months. - to catalyze local businesses so they can use the public discourse to gain local markets with their cities and at regional level, 8 to 12 months from now, for the next 5 years. == hk -- Towards a GNU Consensus on Free Software for Social Networking

1 0

Jump to page:

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

Discussion